And once for love
by erolyn2
Summary: The Battle of Meereen is nearly over, and Daenerys has not returned. Will Jorah Mormont live to see his queen again? Rated M for violence, just in case.


**Disclaimer****:** George R.R. Martin owns everything, I own nothing.

**AN:** Written for a prompt (below) at Game of Ships on LJ:

"We can die by it, if not live by love." (John Donne, _The Canonization_)

It pained me to write this, because I'm seriously afraid that this is what GRRM intends for Jorah. But I couldn't resist the John Donne quote…I effing love Donne, and this one just fit Jorah and Dany so well. So maybe…maybe now that I've written it, Martin won't? Forgive me, fellow Dany/Jorah shippers.

Also, battle scenes aren't my forte, so you'll have to forgive me for that as well.

* * *

The battle was nearly done, and there had been no sign of the queen.

Jorah knew she wouldn't ride out herself, of course. Not if she had truly returned to her pyramid in the city, with her Meereenese king. But he felt certain he would have heard if the queen had been ruling these past weeks. No one had spoken of her. No one had seen a great black dragon fly over the city's walls.

He knew she was alive. _She has to be._ Somehow he felt that he would know it if she had died, that the gods would not tether him to life while she was gone. Despite all he had suffered, Jorah Mormont still believed the gods had mercy. Perhaps he believed it even more now; after all, he had deserved to suffer, had he not? He had betrayed his liege – worse, lied to the woman he loved – and been punished. He had sold men to slavers, and been sold in kind. That was surely justice, if such a thing truly existed.

The vast plain before him was littered with dead men. Sellswords, Unsullied, Dothraki, slavers, Yunkish soldiers – he had never seen a stranger array of corpses. The scent of blood lingered in the heat, tinged with the perfume of sickness that had fallen over the camp as the pale mare took its toll, winding down the Yunkish host enough that it had been a simple matter to convince Brown Ben Plumm to turn sides and fight for Meereen.

For hours, the fight had worn on, surrounding the great city. Jorah had struggled to separate friend from foe – but for their collars, the legions of Yunkish slave soldiers were little different from the masses of Stormcrows and Second Sons. At least Dany's Unsullied and Dothraki were easy to pick out. Many still stood, as collar after collar clanked against the hard ground.

The Imp – _Tyrion, shouldn't it be Tyrion, after all this? _– believed the carnage would draw Drogon back to Meereen, as it had on the day Hizdahr zo Loraq had reopened the fighting pits. As much as the little Lannister annoyed Jorah, he had been grateful to hear of that event from him rather than one of their masters.

But so far there was no sign of a dragon, though Jorah swore he could hear faint cries from inside the city's walls. _Rhaegal and Viserion. Do they know their mother lives?_ He had been there when she named them, in the Red Waste, when they were little more than strange pets. _How large are they now?_ Men spoke of Drogon's size, but he had always dwarfed the other two, and the tales varied.

Jorah saw movement in the corner of his eye, and just managed to catch an _arakh_ with his sword as it came crashing down. He recognized Scar, one of Yezzan's serjeants, for a brief moment before he had parted his head from his body.

The enemy's host was thin now, and when he turned around he could see that the lines had been pushed back miles from the walls of Meereen to where they now lingered along the Skahazadhan. He cut down another slave soldier, and another, feeling the weight of the broadsword pulling at his arms after so many hours of battle. The sun was fading overhead – it would be over soon. Would Daenerys ever know her city had been saved?

A shadow fell across the plain, so vast that at first Jorah thought night had fallen in one great stroke. But then a cry sounded, shrill and inhuman, and he knew Tyrion Lannister had been right.

Drogon descended slowly, circling the host of dead. He _was _monstrous. And wild, and savage, such a far cry from the tiny lizard that had once perched on its mother's shoulder. _And how different is the mother? _Every living man – and woman – had frozen in their tracks to gape in horror at the fearsome beast before them. Jorah squinted through his visor, searching for a pale shape on the dragon's back.

"_Gods_," whispered a voice. Jorah knew the Imp was behind him, but paid him no mind. He still couldn't see her, so he tore off his helm, tossing it at Tyrion's feet.

In the fading light, he could almost catch a flash of silver against the black. And that was all he needed.

Jorah began to run towards the shadow as it narrowed into the center of the scattered Yunkai forces. He ignored the slaves now, and most of them ignored him in return as they shuffled about in terror, caught between the Meereenese army and a wild dragon.

Drogon landed with a crash that rang through the open air. Most of the Yunkai made up their minds when they felt the ground shake, and hurried to meet the enemy. Some of the cleverer men made for the river, though it would only lead them back to Meereen, or out into the Red Waste.

A small figure slid from the creature's back, stumbling as her feet hit the dirt. Her hair was braided, Dothraki style, and she wore a painted vest and sandsilk, as she had in Vaes Dothrak. She looked so weak, and small. So beautiful.

Jorah stopped several feet away, both in fear of the dragon and in awe of her. If she was not real this time, he did not want to know it.

She met his gaze, the flash of violet like a beacon in the dusky light of evening, but she did not seem to know him. He spoke her name like a prayer.

"_Daenerys_."

Her eyes widened in recognition at the sound of his voice, and then in horror as she drew her eyes over his ragged armor, his branded face.

There was a sharp pain then, not unlike the usual stabs Jorah felt in the presence of his queen, but it seemed to be coming from behind him, shooting up from under his arm and through his chest, and he felt something cold pulling away.

He could still see her, though she had grown a bit hazy, and she seemed to be running toward him, and then she towered above as though he were kneeling before her.

"Jorah!"

It sounded like a woman's voice, like Dany's voice, but that couldn't be right, because Daenerys had banished him. He had betrayed her, and she'd sent him away. She was only real in his dreams. _Am I dreaming now?_

"Oh gods, Jorah, no…"

He thought he felt the ground at his back, and a soft hand on his face. _I must be dreaming._ If he was dreaming now, he wanted to dream of her. He tried to call back the feeling of her lips on his from that night on _Balerion_, and for a second he thought he truly felt them, but it must have only been the dream.

_Forgive me, khaleesi. _He had tried to say it aloud, or he thought he had, but he only tasted something warm and metallic as it ran down his mouth, and then he felt nothing at all.

And then cold. A real cold, the cold of winter, and he could see white all around him. Everything smelled of pine. At his left side stood a figure, clad all in black, broad shouldered, white bearded, with a stance like the Old Bear's, and to his right a young woman smiled, proud and tall, willowy, with long dark hair. He would have thought it was Dacey, his eldest cousin, but she looked nearly years older than he remembered her. In the distance, a wrought iron gate stood guard before a great house of wood, etched with an image of a mother suckling a babe at her breast and clutching an axe in her free hand. Only now she seemed to have long silver hair, and her babe looked almost like a dragon.

_Daenerys_.

The last thing he heard was a sob, and an echo of his father's voice.

_"Come home, son. Come home."_

* * *

**Also:  
**

In my head, Jorah's battle song is "Here We Are Juggernaut", by Coheed and Cambria. Just needed to throw that out there._  
_


End file.
